Janet Marie Martin

1932 - 2022

Janet Marie Martin
April 30, 1932 - December 20, 2022
Merced, California - Janet Marie Martin, 90, died on Dec. 20, 2022, of pneumonia and Alzheimer's, in a San Francisco hospital with her sons at her bedside.
She was born April 30, 1932, in Merced, the first child of Manuel G. Silva, from Faial, and Margaret Lillian Pacheco, whose parents were from Sao Miguel and Flores.
Growing up on Healy Road, she liked to sing and dance on her way to the mailbox a mile from the farmhouse. She graduated from Providence College of Nursing in Oakland in 1953 and returned to work in Merced. In 1963 she married Jay E. Martin, the former pastor of Sacred Heart Church.
Janet and Jay moved to Eureka. They opened Moore Avenue School in 1969, converting two houses into a preschool with a puppet theater, a tricycle course, and a yard covered with redwood chips. They moved to Pacific Grove in 1983 and opened a smaller preschool, Educare. Janet taught songs to hundreds of children.
Janet and Jay returned to Merced in 1995, but she never willingly retired. She worked at the Hallmark store in the Merced Mall until her stroke in 2011. She volunteered at the Mercy hospital gift shop until the covid pandemic in 2020.
Her oldest son remembers learning from her how to print letters, and now he is a technical writer. Her middle son remembers she taught him how to be a kind and decent person who cares about making a difference in small ways, and now he is a minister. She inspired her youngest son to be a professional artist by giving him art lessons and taking him to art class as a young boy.
Her sons and their families are Jay Martin Jr. and Elizabeth Creely in San Francisco, Jon Martin and Susanne in North Carolina and Katherine and Jonah, and Jim Martin and Jenny Quan in Southern California and Andie and Henry.
She is also survived by her sisters, Shirley Silva and Carolyn Silva-Poe in Napa, and by a niece and nephews and their families. Her brother Donnie died in 2000. Her husband Jay died in 2007.
She was buried with her husband in San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery. Their marker is inscribed "Many Love-Filled Years."